Jimmy Rave vs. AR Fox
February 21, 2016
Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment
The Enclave (Atlanta, GA)
** ½
In terms of individual performances, this was a pretty good one. Rave was in total big bumping heel champion mode. Rave went non-stop the entire match whether he was bumping for Fox or running around to set Fox up for his next big spot. It was one of those matches where it was hard to miss the fact that one guy was carrying it. Rave was the main reason the match got to the level it did. It was both a noticeable performance and a high quality performance from the veteran.
In terms of overall match quality, this was not anything special. Fox spent the entire match running through his usual assortment of spots. I am not what you might consider an avid AR Fox viewer and I still felt like I’ve seen him perform all the same high spots he used in this match dozens of times before. Making things worse is the fact that Fox’s high spots – which might have been impressive three or four years ago – are far less impressive now relative to his competition. He has not evolved much at all and is running out the same old tired spots. He’s been passed by in a lot of ways. That’s the risk you run when your main weapon is athletic high spots.
Most of the match was Fox on offense. Even when Rave took over, it was always in a manner where it was rather clear they were simply setting up the next Fox comeback or run of high spots. Given the poor quality of his offense, that layout hurt the overall match for me.
The story was essentially that Fox threw everything he had at Rave and Rave survived. Which was weird because based on the way he acted during the match, Rave was the heel. In a vacuum, that is a fine story but it was an odd one given the face/heel alignment. The last second kick outs also got to be a little too much for me by the 3rd or 4th one. The ending didn’t work for me for many of the same reasons they story didn’t. Fox – presumably the face in all of this – threw move after move at Rave only for Rave to survive and pick up a quick victory “out of nowhere”. It was confusing. Had Rave not been put over by constantly surviving and had then cheated to win, that had the possibility of working. As it actually was, the story and ending were full of contradictions.
Good performance by Rave, but only an okay match otherwise.
As an aside, boy were there some obnoxious people in this crowd! Attempting to make yourself part of the show by screaming and cursing loudly throughout a match is a major turnoff for me in any setting. The accents might have been different, but this was as obnoxious of a crowd as anything I have seen out of New York recently.
